


Lifting Your Spirits

by AngryCakeChids



Category: Psycho-Pass
Genre: Anyway merry Christmas HANZ, Everyone's already dead, Gen, HAVE A GHOST KAGARI, I did this on my phone so?? It maybe be weird, I guess it's a ghostly ghostbusters, Pranks, ghost au, white people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-07 10:39:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5453678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngryCakeChids/pseuds/AngryCakeChids
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kagari Shuusei is a seasoned ghost and ghost buster - been around for more years than he's care to count. So the case he's been given isn't much different to anything he's seen before. Naturally, his way of dealing with things is ripping off cheesy horror movies and sarcasm.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lifting Your Spirits

“Kagari, you have another assignment.” Ginoza wasted no time beating around the bush. No ‘hello, how are you?’ simply ‘here’s a job’. That was pretty much their relationship in a tee, and Kagari was used to it by now. But he wanted to at least take Christmas off – like jeez, okay, they were all dead now, but damn, maybe he still wanted to celebrate Christmas? Of course, Gino didn’t bother asking him that, but whatever. His bespectacled boss simply threw the file at him the second he walked through the office door. The ginger ghost didn’t even bother opening it.

“Can’t somebody else do it?” he attempted.

“No,” his boss answered quickly. “Aoyangi and her team are dealing with that defect poltergeist,” he sniffed huffily. “You’re the only one who’s free to do it, currently.”

“Can’t you do it?”

“No, because I have to stop this place being overrun with bad spirits,” his word was final, and Kagari finally deemed it acceptable to open the goddamned file.

Everyone in their… it felt weird calling it an organisation, but he supposed that’s what it was, were dead, and all of them ghosts. After entering the afterlife, they’d been given the choice of wiping the slate clean, forgetting everything and moving onto the next life, or remain as a restless spirit in this world. Kagari felt like he hadn’t lived life properly yet, so opted to stay. He’d began playing harmless pranks on people, even pretended to be Hanako-san and haunt toilets of schools, making everyone scream louder than any banshee.

Naturally, when he began to lose sight of what quantified as acceptable pranking, and that’s when _they_ moved in. They didn’t have a name, but they cleared out any hostile spirits, which Kagari had been classified as. They had given him two options: either be exorcised or help them out.

Naturally, he’d decided to help them out; hell, it was a fun job. And he got paid for doing it, so he usually went to chill in what was technically classified as the underworld after his shift was over and spending it on video games, and if Sasayama was floating around, booze.

“Oh, let me guess,” Kagari scanned the report quickly. “Suburban white family. The dad’s like, ‘ _this move’s good for us_ ’, and the daughter’s like, ‘ _oh my god, dad, I hate you so much_ ’ and then there’s the mom like, ‘ _it’ll be fun_ ’ and for some reason there’s always a ten-year-old boy who’s like, ‘ _woah, this house is defo fucked up_ ’.”

Ginoza wasn’t even listening. “Pretty much.”

“Man, do those people never learn from the movies? There’s enough of them!” he ignored most of the small print of the file – most of it was rubbish, anyways – and rolled his eyes. “It even says – someone like… recently died in there. Are they – are they fucking stupid?!” he started laughing. “Oh my god. This is hilarious.”

“I don’t want you to tackle the ghost head on. We’re not even sure if she can communicate with anyone, you know they’re always more powerful straight after death,” his boss carried on. “I want you to scare the family out before the ghost gets vengeful.” He crossed his arms. “More specifically, you need to keep them out of the attic.”

“Huh? Why’s that?”

"It’s where she died, so she’s tethered there for now until she accepts her death,” Ginoza explained briefly. “If she realises she’s already been replaced, then things may turn ugly and we need an entire team to deal with rogue spirits.”

“Gotcha, gotcha. Well, all I’m gonna do is slam their doors really fucking loudly and yell boo.”

* * *

 

He was true to his word. The family had barely settled into the house when their poltergeist problems began. He decided to make his face really scary and show the kid what it looked like when he died, to the extent he pissed himself and screamed himself hoarse.

Don’t take them as a group – take them one at a time. Such was the way of being a poltergeist. The kid kept insisting that he couldn’t stay and crying all the time, which Kagari decided perhaps wasn’t the best of things. Oops. Still, his parents assured him that he was ‘just seeing things’ and it was his ‘nerves about his new school’. Yeah, right!

Target number two was their stereotypical teenage daughter, who sat all day on her laptop on the same damn website. All day, every day. She was always talking to her boyfriend too, and Kagari didn’t have the heart to tell her that he was already cheating on her. Sitting next to her on her bed, he patted her shoulder. “He was trash anyways,” he comforted her, though she couldn’t hear him. She did shiver, though. He didn’t know why, but he just couldn’t prank the daughter; she was obviously missing her friends, who were missing her too. He didn’t understand how he knew – he just did. His heart kind of went out for her.

“Hey, no worries,” he called over to her, deciding that he wasn’t going to be a dick to her; she was having a rough time as it stood. “You and your idiot dad’ll be out of this place in no time. There’s an angry chick in your attic. I’d watch out for her if I were you.” After that, he left the room. “Oh, and I promise not to fuck up your wifi. I get that it’s important. I couldn’t live without it.” He paused thinking over what he just said. “Or like… be dead without it? I dunno, actually. You know what I mean!”

After that he floated through the wall onto his next real target, the all-too-happy to please mother, who was also sat on her laptop, fiddling about on some official website. In Kagari’s book, official = boring. So it was time to have fun! Rubbing his hands together in glee, he wondered what precisely he could do. The cheeky **I A M G O I N G T O K I L L Y O U** and **I A M W A T C H I N G Y O U** or **Y O U ‘ R E D E A D** were always quite effective. Sometimes, horror movies didn’t lie about some things.

Sure as hell, a couple minutes tinkering about with the display – just like how Hinakawa showed him (Kagari had sucked at working any technology that wasn’t a game system, but Hinakawa never got annoyed at him) – and there it was, the screen black, with the words ‘DEATHDEATHDEATH’ repeating until he flicked the screen back on to spell ‘YOU’RE DEAD’. True to expectations, the mother let out a horrified scream, attracting a worried husband. He quickly switched the screen back to that boring site and let the couple stare at in horror for a while.

When the household was sleeping, he quickly did the traditional painted-words on the wall that simply read LEAVE OR DIE and I’LL KILL YOU for the couple. Honestly, they were just making their kids miserable; adults were really selfish – he didn’t want to ever become an adult. Which was lucky for him, being a ghost and all.

The family decided to call a priest, and Kagari nearly laughed aloud. Priests got rid of malicious spirits; Kagari wasn’t a malicious person, not really – he was just having a laugh. Naturally, the exorcism didn’t work, because Kagari wasn’t evil and the priest wasn’t a great exorcist, but overcharged anyway. What a complete let down, Kagari thought to himself.

He decided to wait for a bit before staging his next move; lull them into a false sense of security. A day or so would cut it. For then, he was reduced to hurling insults at the father of the family who was still insistent that this change was good for the family (it wasn’t) and that ‘no ghost was driving him out of his house’ (it was).

Naturally, this idiot had to screw things up royally again by calling out to his teenage daughter to ‘do some chores’ and move some boxes to the attic. “Fuck,” said Kagari, not sure on how to handle this, and immediately fell back on simply swearing instead of actively trying to fix the problem.

It was at times like this that Ginoza’s parting advice snuck into his mind. “ _I want you to scare the family out before the ghost gets vengeful. More specifically, you need to keep them out of the attic_.”

And now one of them was headed straight up to the attic. Jesus. Shit. Fuck. His mind ran through all the expletives it could think of as he bounded up after the clueless teenager. “Yeah, don’t do that. Stop walking. Woah!” he called after her. As her hand tugged on the door handle, Kagari was desperately leaning on it trying to keep it sealed. “Tell your dad it’s jammed or something!” he pleaded desperately. “Stop-trying-to-fucking-open-it-I-am-trying-to-help-you-out-here-” he gritted his teeth in effort; touching things that were in the realm of the living required a lot of concentration, and Kagari wasn’t great at concentrating; his mind wandered. Hence, he had to concentrate on concentrating, which, more often than not, distracted him. The door swung open after another persistent tug from the living soul next to him. Against his better judgement, Kagari followed her. “Stop it. Please don’t. My god.” The girl shivered; damn, even he could tell that much. It was not good news. “You need to leave, you idiot! You’re facing death by dead person – which isn’t as cool as it sounds!”

The girl didn’t hear him, so he was reduced to yelling insults at her. To his surprise, the girl but the box down and left. There wasn’t a ghost. Oh. He felt like a bit of an idiot, so he just decided to follow her back to where it was warm. However, the door slammed in his face. “Not you.” A quiet voice spoke behind him. “Can you hear me?”

“Yeah.” He replied dryly. “You’re like me, then.”

“Like you?” the voice questioned. It belonged to a young woman, so he quietly turned around to see the dreaded spectre of the uppermost room. She didn’t seem scary… just sad, explaining why it was so cold. Her eyes were large and brown, and filled with hope. “What does that mean? What’s going on?”

“Right, promise me you won’t get mad?” he asked her.

"I’ll try, but I won’t promise it. You might be one of the people who shut me in my own attic.” Kagari felt a sinking feeling in his chest that wasn’t even there, like the heart he no longer had had plummeted to the ground. _She thought she’d been locked in her attic. She thought she was still alive_. “I won’t forgive those people.”

“Right, okay. Um, well,” he stumbled, trying to find a way to start. “How long have you been here?”

“I lost track of time. It can’t have been long – I’m not hungry or thirsty yet. Maybe half a day?” she shrugged her shoulders. “It feels longer than that, but probably because it’s boring.” She looked at herself. “I don’t get it. I’m not tied up or anything. I can move, but I’m stuck at the same time. That’s stupid, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s not,” he replied with an easy smile. “Makes lots of sense.”

“But the door’s not locked,” she pointed out. “That girl just then opened it. Why did she pretend I didn’t exist? Have the bastards who locked me up in here done something to her?” her anger turned into fear. “Are… Are they going to do something to me, too?!”

“No, no, no! Calm down!” Kagari waved his hands. “They can’t do anything to you!”

"Oh yeah, and how do you know that then?!” she snapped. “You could be planning something right now! I can’t trust you.”

“You can, because we’re the same,” Kagari said. “It’s fine, you do whatever makes you comfy, but hear me out, okay?” The ghost nodded, brow furrowed. “That girl doesn’t know you exist. She didn’t see you.”

“I’ve been yelling ever since I heard voices. Everyone ignored me,” she sounded upset. “In the end, I just stopped making any noise at all. Nobody came up here. Until you and that girl did.”

“No-one can hear you, either,” he went on. “So that’s why nobody came up to see you.”

"Stop beating around the bush and tell me what the hell’s going on.”

“Aight. You’re dead.” There was a moment of silence.

“Dead. Me. How?”

“I dunno, do I look like a detective to you?”

"No, you look kind of scruffy. And a little weird.”

“Hey!” he protested.

"So what are you then? Some ghost whisperer who’s here to help me ‘move on’?”

“Nah, I’m a ghost. Like. Dead as a doornail.” He crossed his eyes, stuck out his tongue and drew a line across his throat. Judging by the girl’s face, it didn’t cheer her up much. “It’s not so bad, you get to be a sick-ass ghost hunter.”

"A sick-ass… ghost hunter.” She repeated, her face slack. “I… I can’t be dead. That’s stupid. I… didn’t get to do a lot of things. It’s not fair.” “Yeah, it kinda sucks at first. You get used to it.”

“But… it’s not fair!” her voice began to get louder. Kagari knew things had the potential to turn nasty. “I spent all my life wasting away not being able to do anything, and then I die! What was the point of living if that was all I did, huh?!”

“Well, what sort of stuff did you want to do?” he asked her. That caught her by surprise.

“Run around,” she looked away from him; maybe it was this point she would realise she couldn’t cry. “Play a video game. Drink something alcoholic. Talk to other people. But you said that now I’m dead, I can’t be seen, I can’t be heard. It’s lonely.”

“I can hear you. I can see you. I’ll be your friend, instead!” he suggested. “I know loads of people who are ghosts too! They’ve all kind of accepted it and just kinda got on with it. You can be part of my squad!” This probably wasn’t true, he’d need Gino’s approval, but whatever. That old man could stick it.

“But I can’t leave. How can I be a part of ‘your squad’ if I can’t leave my house?!”

“Well, that’s because you can’t let go. If you want, I’ll stay with you and help you sort things out. I was the same as you at one point, and someone helped me sort out my shit, so I figure I can pass on a little kindness here and there.” He reclined (rather uncomfortably) on some boxes. “Now then, let’s start with a name. I’m Kagari. Kagari Shuusei. And you would be?”

The spirit smiled at him. “Tsunemori. Tsunemori Akane.”

* * *

 

“Everyone, I’d like to introduce you to our newest member,” Ginoza wasted no time with pleasantries as he walked into a now full office. “This is Tsunemori Akane, and she’ll be helping us as of today.”

“It’s… It’s nice to meet you!” Akane bowed deeply. _Yup, she’s as weird as ever,_ Kagari thought to himself.

“You’ll be sitting over there, behind Kunizuka and Kagari,” Ginoza quickly pushed her towards her desk, where she uncertainly sat down. As always, the idea of a spiritual society always confused newcomers. Whatever.“It’s not often we see people like yourself join us.”

“Really?” Akane asked politely.

“Usually, it’s strong emotions that make people stick around in this world for longer than they have to,” Masaoka cut in from the opposite side of the room. “If your files correct, it says you’re not angry or sad.”

“I was at first. Apparently that’s normal, though,” she cast a quick look at Kagari, her only friend. “But I guess there’s some things I want to do before I’m reborn.”

"Oh, yeah, like what?” Kougami looked at her, confused as to why she'd want to say. _Not everyone can be on a revenge quest, Kou,_ Kagari rolled his eyes.

"Nothing exciting. Running around, playing video games… oh, and I want to see a lot of cities.”

"Well, it’s our job to help spirits move on,” Kagari spoke up, wearing his usual goofy grin. “So, Miss Akane, I will be your personal assistant!”


End file.
